Free A Fistful of Fig Newtons by Jean Shepherd Page B

swagger stick like a wand over the crowd. Slowly at first, but then with gathering momentum, a great collective howl rose to the rainy heavens. I found my eyeballs popping, my neck bulging as some strange primitive beast deep within me rose to greet the rolling storm clouds. Schwartz, sweat pouring down his nose, seemed to be rising from the floor. The fat Chipmunk, his glasses steamed up in excitement, yowledin the corner. The colonel, his face impassive, loomed like a great oak amid the banshees. Just as the wail reached its peak, he slapped his swagger stick hard against his trench coat. Instantly, as if a switch had been thrown, the howling ceased, leaving a ringing silence. The colonel stared slowly around the hall, his gaze direct and level, taking in all of us.
    “Men, we are now brothers.” He turned and strode from the hall without as much as a backward glance.
    “HOORAY! YAY! YAY! HOORAY!” A ragged cheer broke out.
    Captain Crabtree was back on his chair. “All right, you guys. Let’s get cracking. We’ve got to move into the lodges before noon chow. Let’s go.”
    Led by the Beavers, we charged out of the hall back into the rain. Lieutenant Kneecamp had unloaded all the baggage, which was piled up in five neat pyramids with signs on each one. He shouted into the hubbub: “Whatever pile your bag is in is what lodge you’re assigned to. I don’t want no arguments. That one over there is Eagle Lodge, that one’s Grizzly Bear Lodge, that one’s Hawk Lodge, that one over there is Polar Bear Lodge, and that one on the end is Mole Lodge.”
    We finally found our stuff, after a lot of rooting around, in the Mole pile. It figured. I hoisted my suitcase, which felt twenty pounds heavier, since it was now soaked with Michigan rain water. Three or four new counselors had appeared, dressed in khaki jackets with yellow arrowheads on the sleeves.
    “All right, you guys from Mole Lodge, follow me,” one of them called out listlessly. We fell in behind him as we struggled up a slippery clay slope toward the long line of log cabins.
    A motley collection of kids squatted in cabin doors or lurked about in slickers and ponchos, watching the new shipment check in. A couple hollered: “You’ll be sorr-reee!”–an ancient cry that must have echoed around recruiting camps in the days of Attila the Hun.
    The counselor glared in the direction of a pimply kid who ducked behind a cabin after chucking an apple core at Schwartz.The counselor scooped up the apple core on the first bounce and winged it back at the retreating figure. It caught him neatly between the shoulder blades, splattering wetly as it hit.

    “That’ll be three Big D’s, Klooberman.”
    “Sir?” asked Flick as he staggered along under his huge steamer trunk. “What’s a Big D?”
    The counselor glanced at Flick. “A Big D, kid, is a big fat
dee-
merit. You get more’n five and they cut off your ice cream. More’nten and forget the swimming. After fifteen, y’go on bread and water. Klooberman just went over twenty.”
    “What’s gonna happen to him?” Schwartz asked, looking scared.
    “Wait and see.” That was all he said as he swung open the creaking door of our little log-cabin home, standing aside for three startled squirrels to vacate the premises before walking in.
    “Here it is, you guys, and you better keep it shipshape or you’re gonna answer to me, Morey Partridge, personally. Y’got it?”
    We got it.
    “And another thing,” he went on. “Once you pick your bunks, I don’t want no movin’ around, because of bed check. You pick yer bunks, y’stay there.”
    We clumped into the dim little cabin. The walls were lined with bunks stacked three high, making six in all. The far wall had a tiny window that looked out into the black forest. Schwartz, Flick, and I were the first in. Behind us toiled three other Chipmunks, lugging their heavy baggage. The one at the end of the line was the fat Chipmunk. He dragged a monstrous steamer